1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and its method for detecting malfunctions of a plurality of car-related hall fixtures by communicating among a main controller, a plurality of hall indicator controllers, a plurality of elevator controllers with the main controller as a master station, and more particularly to an apparatus and a method for automatically detecting malfunctions of a plurality of car-related hall fixtures and car fixtures in a distributed malfunction detecting system where elevator cars are controlled to operate separately from each other, whereby if an elevator maintenance officer wishes to either perform a regular or irregular check up on, or repair malfunctioning parts, a malfunction-detection operation can be automatically accomplished according to the specified malfunction detection program without a need for an elevator maintenance officer to activate a plurality of car related hall fixtures such as hall lanterns, hall position indicators, hall buttons, and hall lamps at every floor landing to be flickered, illuminated, or sounded one by one with an additional activation device in order to determine as to whether or not it is malfunctioning, resulting in making the malfunction-detection operation easy and prompt to complete.
2. Description of the Background Art
As a technology for elevator control systems advances, and becomes broadly available, buyers of elevator systems have directed their attention to how effectively and easily an elevator system maintenance can be done rather than to the level of technology used in elevator system. Accordingly, how efficiently an elevator system can be installed and maintained appears to be an essential factor in enhancing competitive power in the market.
As an example, a 4 elevator car group is installed in a 15-storey building. The elevator-car-related hall fixtures on each floor landing are: 4 hall position indicators showing an arbitrary number indicative of a current service floor of the elevator car, 8 travelling direction indicating lamps (including Up and Down lamps) for indicating the travelling direction of the respective elevator car, 8 car arrival indicating lanterns (including Up and Down lanterns) indicating the imminence of an elevator car arrival, 4.about.8 hall call button lamps (including Up and Down lamps) indicating hall call generation and hall call registration, and 4 hall chime bells for notifying the arrival of the elevator car to the service floor landing. In the building, the total number of elevator-car-related hall fixtures amounts to between 240 and 360.
A conventional malfunction detecting apparatus for such an elevator system is operated in such a manner that the maintenance officer has to activate, on one by one basis, every car-related hall fixtures to check whether or not it is malfunctioning. The maintenance officer often feels burdened in carrying out the malfunction-detecting job, since car-related hall fixtures are installed at every floor landing and are huge in number, resulting in that abandonment or incompletion of the job by the maintenance officer. Often, the maintenance officer inspects only safety-related elements or devices such as elevator controllers and door opening/closing related devices, which are essential for the safety operation and are not many in number.
In other words, the safety-related devices having the highest priority among devices or elements in an elevator system are checked up every time for a possible malfunction. However, car-related hall fixtures and car fixtures which are more easily noticeable to elevator car passengers are not always checked by the maintenance officer because these fixtures are so many in number and have to be activated on a one by one basis to determine whether or not they are malfunctioning with the conventional malfunction detecting apparatus. The conventional malfunction detecting apparatus and its method make the malfunction detecting process very time consuming and uneasy. As a result, the passengers may often find out about several malfunctioning elements on both car-related hall fixtures and car fixtures, and feel be alarmed or annoyed by them. passengers find out those malfunctioning elements not still fixed in spite of regular check-ups done by the building maintenance officer, they may start to distrust of the elevator manufacturing company on that.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a construction of a conventional malfunction detecting apparatus. Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional malfunction detecting apparatus includes an elevator controller 1 for performing overall elevator-related signaling and motion functions; a plurality of hall indicator controllers 2A, 2B for transmitting a hall call request signal generated from a hall call button lamp 5A, 5B through a transmission line L1 to the elevator controller 1, for receiving indication control data from the elevator controller 1, processing the control data, transmitting processed indication-related data to respective car-related hall fixture among hall position & up/down direction indicators 3A, 3B, car arrival indicating hall lanterns 4A, 4B, hall call button lamps 5A, 5B, and hall chime bells 6A, 6B; an oncage controller 7 installed at the ceiling of an elevator car for transmitting through a transmission line L2 to the elevator controller 1 the various data entered from various switches and sensors; an incage controller 8 installed inside of an elevator car 9 for transmitting through the transmission line L2 to the elevator controller 1 the various data entered from various switches and a car call button, and for controlling display operations of car fixtures for car position and travelling direction; and the elevator car (or car) 9.
The operation of a conventional malfunction detecting apparatus with the above-described construction will be described with reference to FIG. 1. First of all, when a passenger presses the hall call button lamp 5A to call the elevator car, the hall call request signal is registered. At this time, the hall indicator controller 2A recognizes that the hall call request signal is registered in response to an incoming hall call request signal transmitted from the hall call button lamp 5A, and then transmit the data to the elevator controller 1 through the transmission line L1. The elevator controller 1 determines and select an optimum elevator car, then sends "car sending data" to the selected elevator car instructing the car to travel to the destination floor, at the same time determines the current floor position and up/down travelling direction of the selected car 9 upon the receipt of output data from the oncage controller 7, and then transmits those data to the hall indicator controller 2A, 2B.
The hall indicator controller 2A, 2B at every floor thereafter controls the car-related hall fixtures such as the hall position & up/down direction indicator 3A, 3B, car arrival indicating hall lanterns 4A, 4B, hall call button lamps 5A, 5B, and hall chime bells 6A, 6B to display, indicate, flicker, illuminate, and sound respectively depending on the data received through the transmission line L1 so that the passenger who called the elevator car may easily know that the elevator system has responded to his or her call and that the responding elevator car is approaching to the respective floor landing at which passengers are waiting for the elevator car.
The car door key opened when the car 9 arrives at the destination floor. The passengers enter the car 9, then press the button corresponding to the destination floor, e.g., a service floor. The car call request data is generated based on the pressed button. The car call request data is fed into the elevator controller 1 via the incage controller 8. The elevator controller 1 determines and selects the optimum elevator car 9 by comparing each elevator car message with the reference data, and sends to the selected car "car sending data" instructing it to travel to the destination floor. The elevator controller 1 simultaneously sends a control signal via the incage controller 8 to the car fixtures such as a car position indicator and an up/down direction indicator disposed on the wall of the elevator car 9 to display the corresponding data respectively. The car position and the up/down direction indicators display the corresponding data respectively.
On the other hand, if the elevator maintenance officer sets the elevator system at a repair & malfunction-detection mode, the elevator controller 1 recognizes that the elevator system is set to the repair & malfunction detecting mode, and hence, transmits a corresponding control signal to a plurality of hall indicator controllers at every floor through the transmission line L1 so that every hall indicator controller stops its current operations. The car-related hall fixtures at every floor landing thereafter also stop their current display operations. Both hall call button lamps 5A,5B and car call buttons are also prevented from generating hall call and car call signals, respectively, so as to prevent passengers from entering any elevator car selected to test for malfunction during the repair & malfunction detecting mode.
As described above, the conventional malfunction detecting apparatus prevents passengers from entering certain elevator cars by deactivating displays of every kind of car-related hall fixtures as well as car fixtures during the malfunction detecting process. However, since every car-related hall fixtures as well as car fixtures are turned off in the malfunction detecting mode, the maintenance officer may not be able to activate them to determine whether or not they are malfunctioning. In the conventional apparatus, the maintenance officer tests hall and car fixtures using a separate tester to selectively activate each of them, instead of using an existing elevator communication system. Otherwise, the maintenance officer performs the malfunction detection job after converting the elevator system mode from the repair & malfunction-detecting mode to the normal operation mode in which the car-related hall fixtures as well as car fixtures can be activated with the use of the existing elevator communication system. This allows the maintenance officer to check whether or not the hall and car fixtures are malfunctioning without the use of a seperate tester. However, the maintenance officer still need to activate a plurality of car-related hall fixtures and car fixtures on a one by one basis even in the normal operation mode.
The conventional malfunction detecting apparatus with the above-described construction entails the following disadvantages. In order to accomplish the repair & malfunction detecting task, the maintenance officer first sets the elevator system in the repair & malfunction-detecting mode, converts the system operation mode from the repair & malfunction-detection mode to the normal operation mode, and then activates every car-related hall fixtures (e.g.,) in a 15-storey building having 4 elevator car group, the total number of car related hall fixtures is between 240 and 360) as well as car fixtures on each floor one by one. As a result, the repair and the malfunction detecting task according to prior art is complicated and very much time consuming to complete. Because of these disadvantageous operating characteristics of the prior art described above, a malfunction detecting job is usually not performed completely, especially specially for a plurality of car-related hall fixtures, deteriorating the quality of an elevator system and causing dissatisfaction on the users of the elevator system is not provided. The passengers of the elevator system therefore may not be satisfied with the quality of the elevator system.